


Our Thing

by coveredbyroses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredbyroses/pseuds/coveredbyroses
Summary: It’s been a decade since the Winchesters retired, since they hung up the guns and machetes to collect dust up on the bunker’s weapon racks. A lot has changed.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	Our Thing

He hasn’t even made it through your foyer when he says it, and it stops you dead in your tracks. He doesn’t - he doesn’t mean _that_. He can’t mean that. You turn slow, and he’s just _standing_ there; poised and relaxed.

“Oh.” It comes out weird and dry and a little clipped. You wish you could suck it back down into your chest. “You should probably go to the doctor.” Damnit.

He chuckles and it reminds you just how deep his voice is. How much deeper it’s gotten - been a while since you’ve heard it there in the open.

“How d’ya think I know I’m sick?”

“Flu’s been bad this year,” you deny behind the cotton in your throat. The air conditioner kicks on.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

You swallow and nod dim. “How long?”

“S’it matter?”

“Does to me.”

It takes a moment, but then - “Six months, but who knows. Not in my hands.”

It’s been a decade since the Winchesters retired, since they hung up the guns and machetes to collect dust up on the bunker’s weapon racks.

Dean’s fifty-three now, hair thinning and almost completely gray. The lines mapping his face are much deeper than before, once full lips losing their plump with age. No longer hunting, he’s lost a lot of his mass, looks almost small standing there under the arched frame.

But he doesn’t look sick. He _can’t_ be sick.

A burst of heat under your cheeks is your only warning before the tears spring hot. “Does Sam know?”

Dean smiles sad, eye crinkles darkening. “Course he does.”

“He’ll find a way.” Your voice breaks into a dry crack, and Dean’s eyes glitter with a kind of tranquil sorrow.

“No,” he says. “We-” Emotion grips his own voice then and he looks away. “That ain’t our thing anymore.”

And, damn it all, you’re getting pissed. “He’s not gonna just stand there and lose you, Dean!” you fire. “You wouldn’t for him.”

His gaze hooks onto your own, jaw ticking in a painfully familiar way. “I would.”

You close your eyes in defeat, let the tears run their searing trails down your cheeks. He’s on you in a blink, now-soft pads of this thumbs swiping the wet away.

“M’here,” he mumbles, and when you open your eyes you find his dark and shining, lips soft and smiling. “Wanted to marry you, y’know. Wanted to so bad, but-”

“Me too,” you whisper shaky, then pull him into you, let him drop his face down into the slope of your neck and shoulder. “Just wasn’t our thing, was it?”

*

The sky’s a pale gray and it’s cold. Dean died, of all days, on his fifty-fourth birthday. You’re standing next to Sam, watching as the chilly breeze whips through his hair. He still wears it long, silvered now.

“Can’t do it,” he rasps. “Can’t burn him.”

“I know.” You tuck yourself into his side, wrap your hands around his softening bicep. “He’d understand.”

Dean lies at your feet, six feet deep into the cold earth behind the bunker in a wooden coffin he’d built himself the days following his prognosis. _Ash wood. Burns easy,_ he’d said.

“God, I’m gonna miss him,” Sam chokes. Your tears are hot against the cold. “It’s different this time, you know?” He sniffs and bats at the wet streaming down tired cheeks. “He - he’s not coming back this time, and-and this wasn’t how he was supposed to go. I can’t do anything. I promised, but - I should do _something, _right? I-”

You twist against him, drag a hand along his jaw “Shh. I know. God, I know - but you’ll see him again. You will. Not for a long while, but someday. Hold onto that and - and remember him. Remember his strength. His bravery. His love. Remember the stupid jokes, and those _terrible_ table manners…” You both chuckle at that and Sam curls a massive, but gentle hand around your wrist.

“He wanted to marry you, you know.” You smile grim at the echo of those painful words, at the gut-wrenching haze of what could have been.

“I know.” You tip your head back and blink up at the clearing January sky. “Just wasn’t our thing.”


End file.
